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"Are they going to ignore overwhelming public opinion during a tight election year and rubber stamp these 500+ pages of blatant, stinking corruption?"
FCC commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn joined protesters outside the panel's headquarters on Thursday before issuing a dissent to Republican chair Ajit Pai's proposal to end net neutrality protections. The repeal was passed with a 3-2 vo
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Now that the FCC has finally made public all 539 pages (pdf) of chairman Ajit Pai's order to repeal net neutrality, defenders of the open internet are warning that the time has come for members of Congress to make a choice -- either side with the American public and take action to stop Pai's attack on net neutrality, or be voted out of office.
"Are they going to ignore overwhelming public opinion during a tight election year and rubber stamp these 500+ pages of blatant, stinking corruption?" Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future said in a statement on Thursday. "Or will they listen to their constituents, small businesses, free speech advocates, and tech experts and support a Congressional Review Act (CRA) vote to overturn the FCC's repeal and restore net neutrality protections that keep the web free from censorship, throttling, and new fees?"
As of this writing on Friday, 29 senators -- 28 Democrats and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) -- have signed on to Sen. Ed Markey's (D-Mass.) effort to undo the Republican-controlled FCC's December vote to kill net neutrality by introducing a "resolution of disapproval" that would, if passed, restore the 2015 net neutrality protections that are currently being scrapped.
Nineteen Senate Democrats -- as well as Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) -- have yet to announce their support for Markey's resolution (see list below). A minimum of 30 votes are needed to bring the resolution to the Senate floor.
In an email on Friday, Greer noted that the "FCC's official release of the final text [of Pai's proposals] starts the clock for the order to be entered into the Federal Register."
"Once that happens, we'll have 60 legislative days to get Congress to reverse it using the CRA," Greer added. "It's an uphill battle, but our momentum is growing."
Passage of the CRA will ultimately require at least two Republican votes in the Senate and around 20 in the House.
But before net neutrality defenders can worry about winning over Republicans, they first have to ensure that every Democrat is on board.
As part of the effort to pressure lawmakers into defending the open internet, Fight for the Future has launched a website that lists every senator who has yet to support Markey's CRA push, and provides tools and sample scripts for Americans to easily contact their representatives.
In addition to Sen. King, the Independent from Maine, what follows is thefull list of the Democratic senators who have yet to sign on to Markey's resolution:
Cory Booker (D-N.J.)
Tom Carper (D-Del.)
Bob Casey (D-Pa.)
Chris Coons (D-Del.)
Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.)
Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.)
Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.)
Doug Jones (D-Ala.)
Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)
Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)
Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)
Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
Bill Nelson (D-Fla.)
Tina Smith (D-Minn.)
Jon Tester (D-Mont.)
Tom Udall (D-N.M.)
Mark Warner (D-Va.)
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